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The court heard that the waste ground by the walkway on to the bridge over the M4 was a 'bleak spot used by rough sleepers, drunks and drug addicts' and was just yards from the busy motorway leading to Heathrow airport.

Mr Aylett told jurors that Mrs Kaur was last picked up on CCTV cameras at 6.33am on Monday, October 17, last year as she walked towards the bridge.

In a search of the area, a visiting officer from Norway, detective chief inspector Kenneth Berg, spotted a human foot sticking out from beneath a sleeping bag covered with branches which turned out to be Mrs Kaur.

Her body was found near this bridge over the M4, pictured, in Harlington, Middlesex

A post-mortem examination failed to establish how she died but Mr Aylett said it was obvious from the way she had been found that it was murder.

Investigators who trawled through the CCTV images also noticed a man under the bridge at the same time as Mrs Kaur.

Less than half an hour later, someone was picked up on CCTV dragging her body away towards the patch of ground where it was later discovered.

Mr Aylett said: 'The prosecution allege that the man under the bridge is Vadims Ruskuls and the figure dragging her body towards the woodlands must also be Vadims Ruskuls.

'What happened in the 25 minutes between those two pieces of film? The prosecution allege that the defendant must have pounced on Pardeep Kaur at some point on the ramp, that he then sexually assaulted her and he murdered her.'

This CCTV image was the last time Mrs Kaur was seen alive as she walked towards the bridge in Harlington, Middlesex

The victim must have fought her attacker as the defendant was seen with scratches on his face afterwards, he said.

But he added: 'If she had cried out, her screams would have been drowned out by the sound of the early morning traffic.'

Ruskuls was allegedly caught after an officer recognised his image on CCTV to a man he had spoken to the day after the killing.

In the early hours, the constable had been called to a house in Hayes to a report of a 'stoned' man trying to open the front door looking like he had been 'dragged through a hedge'.

The officer found the suspect walking barefoot with scratches to his left cheek and neck, the court heard.

Following his arrest for the murder of Mrs Kaur, Ruskuls' DNA was compared to samples taken from her body.

His DNA was matched to samples from her ankle, sock, and the left cup of her bra with a probability of 'one in a billion', jurors were told.

DNA from the victim's fingernails were also found to be a match, the court heard.

Jurors were told that Mrs Kaur had come to live in Britain in 2011 with her husband Rachpal Singh who had a job at Fresh Foods in Hayes.

They both worked six-days a week to send money to their five-year-old daughter who lived with her grandparents in India.

When Mrs Kaur first disappeared, police suspected the husband because he initially lied to police saying he had seen her that morning when he had yet to return from a night shift.

The court heard he had feared they would discover he was working without a permit.

It was only after he came clean, that the investigation 'quickly moved on', Mr Aylett said.

The defendant, who refused to make any comment in police interviews, denies murder.